Lingering, or the post painkiller phase.

Where do I begin??

The last two weeks have been extraordinarily crazy.

Around 10 days ago, I found out a very good friend of mine was killed. A day later, we found out it was suicide. It broke our hearts. Her husband had died of cancer just 18 months ago, and she and her 5 young children had moved away from a town that treasured them to be near family and get a new lease on life. We thought that was what she was doing, but she got involved with the wrong man. That man was abusive and I can only imagine the fear and despair my friend was going through while the rest of us thought she was being brave by getting out of a bad situation. We were lovingly supporting her from far away, or so we thought. The sad fact is, people who are suffering, especially people like my friend who prided herself on her perfection and goodness, don’t reach out the way we would hope they would. They don’t ask for help in an ordinary fashion, or at all. They can’t, lest they feel more shame and pain. It breaks MY heart that suffering like this is occurring in the world at all, but it is. So many of us aren’t up front with ourselves or our friends about what we need. The lesson for me has been, talk. Be honest. Tell people what I need. Ask for help. Let them know I love them every day.

I will miss this friend. She had a beauty about her that was indescribable. So many of my friends and fellow community members are heart broken right now. I pray every moment that she is being held up by her angels. I pray every day that her 5 children will know her love through out their lives, through the memories of family and friends.

So, that started me on something of a downward spiral.

two days later, I decided to quit taking the morphine I’d been on since leaving the hospital. It looked like I was doing things with that morphine that I still have no memory of. Pills were missing. I can only guess it was me. I had developed a real addiction a mere 8 weeks after leaving the hospital. It scared me, everyone. I am already a co-dependent and grew up with a family of alcoholics and addicts. I have worked on my issues when I can, yes, but my illness and back surgery sort of took over my life. Then apparently, the morphine did. I found the key that turns the addiction lock in my brain.

I should feel ashamed, and as I write this, I feel scared to print it. I don’t LIKE to admit this yet. I gave it to my higher power, but it almost breaks me to believe that it was so easy to get addicted to something I never wanted in the first place, but needed for the extreme pain I’d suffered.

So, Monday of last week, I stopped taking it. I figured I could handle anything that came my way because I am strong and super stubborn. Guess what? I was so very wrong. I couldn’t handle it. I started accusing my daughter of stealing my pills, yelling at her every chance I got. Waking her up and blaming her for my miserable condition. Being the WORST mother ever.

Well, God (or whatever you call it) does answer prayers, I found. I asked fervently for help. I asked God to make me stop being crazy, to take the pain from me (the psychological pain and the crazy of withdrawal). I went to my pain management clinic and told them what happened. Let me be baldly honest, the first time I went, I made up some stuff so I wouldn’t sound so nuts. I asked for help and they gave me a prescription for a drug called clonodine, which reduces anxiety and blood pressure. It is commonly used in minor addictions.

God, though, god listens. Help came in the form of my best friend on the planet. She called and I told her what was happening. Now, she had to work, but she told me, please go to the detox if you need help. On Wed of last week, I went to the local detox and they could not admit me. You see, morphine withdrawal doesn’t kill people in generally good health. They did, however, get me a new appointment with my pain guy (who specializes in addiction medicine) for the very next morning. But I was still crazy and still begging God for help. So he sent my Laura. She came and took me home with her and kept me sane. The clonodine started working, too, and I was a lot calmer. The pain guy got me a sleeping medicine so I could get some rest. You see, during withdrawal I could not sleep, nor eat. The lines were blurred with what was symptom of withdrawal and what was grief for my friend mentioned above.

That night I finally slept. I saw my guy in the morning and got honest. I told him everything, as real as I could remember. Laura helped me. No prescription changes, but by this time I was feeling better. Just staying away from my daughter (who I wanted to blame instead of facing my own problem) and taking some personal mental space helped me confront this problem. Now I’m not the sort of addict that has been drinking for years…in fact, I don’t drink. I don’t like it, and I’m not much for any drugs, to be honest. This threw me hard. I NEVER thought I could become an addict on top of being co-dependent. But the brain chemistry is so similar in the end, I should not have been surprised to find myself here. But I was. I hated the hospital, I blamed everyone for doing this to me, but in the end, I found that taking responsibility for my own brain is working best. I have a brand new addiction. I need to address it and deal with it. I need to work on my co-dependency issues too.

All this brought me around again to my friend, whose local memorial service was yesterday. She was like me in many ways, and completely different than me in others, but what we shared was co-dependency. I know some of you will read this and find it offensive. We call it generosity of spirit, or altruism, or anything but what it can be. When we find ourselves more interested in everyone else’s problems, and ignoring our own, we might be codependent. When we find ourselves actively taking care of anyone but ourselves, we might be codependent. In a society that lauds selfless women who care only for others in such a generous way, it is hard for a woman to be healthy mentally.

Clearly, I am not saying that every selfless act, that every generous nature is codependent. I’m saying it can be. When the person involved is losing their own identity because they are so involved with everyone else’s issues, they are codependent. I truly think we value that so much in this modern western world, we’ve forgotten the value of individuality and strong identity. Just my opinion, of course.

This brings me around to another thing I’ve learned over the course of this last few months. Treasure every minute you have with the people you love. Who ever they are. Love them, tell them so. Hug them if they’ll let you. Tell them how you value them, and in what way. I’ve been doing this with my children this week, so they know that their mom is here and present and loves them. I’ve also begun to show them by modeling, that I am taking care of myself, too. That if I don’t take care of myself and start to heal, I can’t take care of anyone else in a real way. I can’t be a martyr or a care taker or a people pleaser anymore. I have GOT to deal with the real Megan.

Please, hug your loved ones. Tell them you love them. Life is fleeting and what if you never get another chance to do it? And, if you are like me, you’ll look at the sky tonight and say “Thank you”. Thank you for my life, thank you for answering me when I need you, thank you for your real presence in my life. My experience of the divine is true, and so is yours.

The Whole Story of my crazy illness and surgery and pain.

So, I’ve been gone a long time. I imagine my 4 fans might be wondering where the dangerous old lady has been. It’s a long story, but one I need to tell.

Back in August I was still volunteering for my rebuilding class and deciding what I was going to do next with my life. I was taking a swing dance class that made me crazy nervous but I had fun learning. I was feeling pretty happy. That’s when life throws you a huge curveball!!

The night I was supposed to finally get to have that final Rebuilding dinner and ceremony, (I didn’t get to go when I was in the class because my daughter thought she was in labor), I went to the hospital instead. I’d been having severe back pain from the time we had girls day at the beach the day before and it got really bad that night and I had to leave for the 2nd time in the middle of the last class, after I’d explained to the dance teacher I might not come on tuesday because of pain. By the time I got home, my daughter was alarmed enough to call 911 and get me to an ER. I was in severe pain and now shivering with fever.

We were in the ER for a very long time while they did various tests and cultures to try to determine the issue. I got pain medication thankfully, but I was still miserable. As it turned out, instead of going home with pain meds, I got admitted for a Staph infection in my blood and osteomyelitis in my spine bones. (I also had a herniated disk but that wasn’t really the problem, that just made the area vulnerable to attack by the staph). I don’t have a lot of memory of the next few days. I remember an MRI, I remember I was in the MICU (Medical Intensive Care Unit) at Shands. I got pneumonia which is why I was placed there. I have memory of being sick, but no real memory of my daughter and her baby visiting every day. I was on the edge of death, actually. If I hadn’t gone to the ER that night, I might not be here today. That was not a good thing to face after I got more aware and I got pretty upset. I had a very special nurse in the MICU I’ll probably never forget named Leah who took amazing care of me. And I had a lovely young man flirting with me as he took me for walks. I probably looked just scary, but he was so nice to me. I will never forgot those two people, because they made me feel special and happy in the middle of a crisis.

After about a week and a half I got better enough to get out of the MICU and move to a room. 2 days after that I was sent home to a home health nurse and IV antibiotics for 8 weeks. That was Aug. 24th. I had made it and I was going to live, but I still had some issues and tons of medications to control pain and the infection and the side effects of pain meds, etc. It was amazing how much medicine I had to take, plus have a 24 hour IV into a picc line and a home health nurse weekly draw blood for cultures. As I was leaving the hospital, one last doctor came to see me from the Infectious Diseases group and what he told me was very important. He said if i had ANY numbness or tingling in any limbs, to immediately call and report it.

It was a very good thing he told me this, because I remembered it just 2 days later when I woke up with a numb and tingling right foot. I called and the Dr. on call told me to go back to the ER. This time my daughter drove me. What a way to wake up on her daughter’s first birthday! I was going to miss all the celebrations that day which really made me sad. We had guests I was so wanting to be with. My cousin, my stepfather, my X and fellow grandparent..I just wanted to be a part of all of it, but I couldn’t be. After another horrifying MRI, they discovered a large abcess on my spine. It was decided that I would have to have a Laminectomy so they could get the abcess out. So a piece of bone removed and the area near my spine cleaned up. I stayed in the hospital in much worse pain for another week. My soon to be ex stayed with me, though, so Alexis could have my granddaughter’s party. What a horrible day that was..that MRI was just horrible. I almost freaked out, and then they told me i was going back in for high def. pictures and I said NO, I can’t. They about threw me onto the transport bed, which made me scream and cry in pain.

So, healing from all this has been a longer road than I wanted. I’ve had physical therapy and I’m still on antibiotics through the picc line for 24 hours a day until the end of october. There have been a lot of pain meds, most of which are gone now. However, the morphine is still there and today I went to a pain management clinic to formulate a plan to wean me off of that. I dislike taking pain medicine, but this pain warranted taking it. Some days I push too hard and the pain is pretty bad. Some days I feel like I can’t do anything but sit on the couch. Sometimes I have felt scared that I’d never be OK again, and sometimes I have just marveled at how precious life is and how happy I am that I didn’t lose mine. I need to be here when my baby (almost 7 now) has her babies. I want to be a super old lady who says stupid things someday.

Life is precious and you can lose it in a moment in a way you never expected. Life really IS dangerous at times and that scares me. But as soon as I’m more able, I intend to take all the joy it has to offer as often as I can. This past weekend was the first weekend since all this that I got to spend it with my two younger kids. It was not really easy, but it wasn’t hard either. And it made me feel extremely happy. I never want to miss them so much again. I love being a part of their every day life!

So I will live with joy and gratefulness and do the best I can every single day that I have here. I will share the love in my heart, I will work on being a great person.